NASCAR Cup Series driver Noah Gragson is back.
Well, sort of.
The sanctioning body announced on Tuesday that Gragson, who has been suspended since Aug. 5 for what NASCAR deemed an inappropriate “like” to a social media post regarding George Floyd, has been reinstated. Floyd was killed while in police custody in 2020.
Unfortunately for Gragson, he doesn’t have a car to return to, as Legacy Motor Sport has since granted the driver his release from his No. 42 car ride. The team granted Gragson his release after he asked to be released on Aug. 10.
NASCAR assigned Gragson to diversity and inclusion training as part of his path to return to racing.
Gragson was 21 starts into his first full-time season in the Cup Series. He has already been replaced at LMC by John Hunter Nemechek for the 2024 season.
Gragson, 25, was runner-up in the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship in 2022 and runner-up in the Truck Series in 2018.
Mike Pryson covered auto racing for the Jackson (Mich.) Citizen Patriot and MLive Media Group from 1991 until joining Autoweek in 2011. He won several Michigan Associated Press and national Associated Press Sports Editors awards for auto racing coverage and was named the 2000 Michigan Auto Racing Fan Club’s Michigan Motorsports Writer of the Year. A Michigan native, Mike spent three years after college working in southwest Florida before realizing that the land of Disney and endless summer was no match for the challenge of freezing rain, potholes and long, cold winters in the Motor City.
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